There are a bunch of names on the Oilers 50-man list we don’t know. Alan Quine, anyone? Seth Griffith?
At the same time, the NHL draft is complete and many quality prospects were passed over. Why?
THE ATHLETIC!
I’m proud to be writing for The Athletic, and pleased to be part of a great team with Daniel Nugent-Bowman and Jonathan Willis. Here is our recent work.
- New Lowetide: Finding Connor McDavid’s optimal linemates among 2020-21 Oilers
- New Jonathan Willis: A cautious free agent period boosts an Oilers team still on the upswing
- New Lowetide: Oilers prospects poised to benefit after offseason news.
- New Lowetide: Oilers bring back Mike Smith for another year.
- New Lowetide: Oilers sign Tyson Barrie to a team-friendly deal.
- New Lowetide: Oilers sign Kyle Turris, Tyler Ennis in early hours of free agency.
- Lowetide: Ken Holland will need to be creative in free agency
- Lowetide: Jesse Puljujarvi signing overshadows a strong day for Oilers at draft
- Lowetide: Oilers draft Dylan Holloway on Day 1, with trades possible Wednesday
- Lisa Dillman: Dylan Holloway could be a ‘difference-maker’ for the Oilers
- Eric Duhatschek: Connor McDavid’s positive COVID-19 test stirs debate about the next NHL season
- Jonathan Willis: Oilers could benefit both now and in the future by adding a right-shot defender
- Lowetide: Ken Holland’s work week: Get good players, keep good players
- Lowetide: Oilers’ defence prospects are pushing, and changes are coming
- Lowetide: Potential trades and partners for the Oilers’ offseason
- Lowetide: Dealing a defenceman? Taking stock of Oilers’ blueline assets
- Daniel Nugent-Bowman: Q&A: Oilers GM Ken Holland on improving internally, the flat cap and goaltending
- Lowetide: Oilers Top 20 Prospects, Summer 2020
2020 DRAFT PROSPECTS WHO WEREN’T CHOSEN
I usually have five or so names from my top 100 in each draft who are not chosen. This year is mostly typical, although my top 60 were drafted and that’s unusual.
As an example, I had goalie Veini Vehvilainen No. 37 in 2016’s draft, he passed through. Vehvilainen would get drafted in 2018. Here is this year’s list of players in my top-100 who were not drafted:
- 63 LW Owen Pederson, Winnipeg (WHL). Scored 28 goals in 61 games.
- 81 LW Kyle Crnkovic, Saskatoon (WHL). 5.07 winger, 64 pts in 63 games.
- 83 RW Wiljami Myllylä, HIFK (Jr. Liiga). Speed demon, gaudy scoring.
- 84 LC Theo Rochette, Quebec (QMJHL). Undersized two-way center.
- 87 G Sam Hlavaj, Sherbrooke (QMJHL). .915 save percentage.
TYLER TULLIO COMPARABLES
Tullio is a prospect we’re going to spend some time on. He plays in the OHL, posted 66 points in 62 games (1.06 points-per-game). Names over the last five years who have been in his range at 17 (Tullio is an April 2002) include Connor McMichael, Philip Tomasino, Nick Robertson, Robert Thomas, Taylor Raddysh, Michael McLeod. Not saying he’ll land there, but those are his comparables.
50-MAN LIST (45)
G Mikko Koskinen. His .924 five on five save percentage places him as the clear No. 1 goaltender. He should be able to solidify his starting status with 60+ percent of the starts.
G Mike Smith. Veteran is back and one year older. His five on five save percentage in 2019-20 was .900, No. 50 of 52 goalies who played 1,000 or more minutes during the regular season.
G Anton Forsberg. He has NHL experience and I’d give him a 75 percent chance of playing in at least one NHL game next season.
G Stuart Skinner. Oilers like him but he has to perform well in Bakersfield next time the Condors play hockey. He had a strong run in November (six games, 4-2-0, .921 save percentage, 2.35 goals-against average) but was not consistent.
G Dylan Wells. He is in an even more difficult spot than Skinner, who at least has the net for some of the time in Bakersfield. Wells needs a break of some sort during the final year of his entry deal.
G Olivier Rodrigue. He has already posted a quality start in Austria and is not facing a strong depth chart as he begins his pro career. Russian Ilya Konovalov seems to be the strongest competition at this time.
LD Darnell Nurse. He played 23:27 last season and may hit 25 minutes a night in 2020-21. Rugged defender, puck transporter, enforcer and top-4 defenseman.
LD Caleb Jones. It wasn’t planned this way, but the Oilers need Jones to duplicate Ethan Bear’s rookie season with something similar on the second pairing. Wonderful skater, he can make outstanding passes and is strong. I think he’ll need 35 games to get comfortable.
LD Kris Russell. The Klefbom injury combined with the flat cap looks to have ensured Russell hanging around for the final season of his contract. I think he’ll pair with newcomer Tyson Barrie and get plenty of PK time.
LD William Lagesson. Barring any additions, the Klefbom injury would seem to guarantee Lagesson’s presence on the Oilers roster. He could fill most of Russell’s role within a year, although he obviously won’t bring much experience.
LD Oscar Klefbom. He is injured and it looks like he could be gone for the entire season.
LD Philip Broberg. He is 1-3-4 after seven games and playing almost 21 minutes a night in the SHL. All of the smart math people I have talked to over the last several years tell me that the top-flight defenseman make themselves known very early, as in by 20. This young man turns 20 next June. He might fly up this depth chart in the last 12 months.
LD Dmitri Samorukov. Another defenseman with good arrows, this time in the KHL where he’s 2-4-6 in 14 games (17:29 per night). He is having a breakout season in Russia (+13, I don’t know his even strength on ice goal differential).
LD Theodor Lennstrom. Has played just four SHL games, averaging 14:52 per night. I think he’s going to get r-u-n-o-v-e-r-d by all these lefty blue prospects.
LD Markus Niemelainen. He has played four Liiga games and has 31 pims, so Niemelainen is seeing lots of Finland! He’s a shutdown blue, I’d like to see him in Bakersfield, test that mobility.
RD Adam Larsson. Veteran is effective when healthy and a grave concern when his back goes sideways. In the final year of his contract and vulnerable as an Oilers player.
RD Ethan Bear. One of the best rookie seasons by an Oilers defenseman in the last decade, and he’ll be a bargain contract again next year. Sublime passer and that experience a year ago should be useful in the coming season.
RD Tyson Barrie. It’s going to take some time for the idea of having Barrie on the roster, but he’ll make a great deal of difference on outlets and on the power play. Fantastic addition.
RD Evan Bouchard. He’s blocked from getting an opening night job, but injuries happen and some effective play in the minors should mean he gets the recall. Not sure when he’ll get to show off his PP prowess.
RD Filip Berglund. He has played six games this year (0-1-1) and is averaging 21:54 per game. I’d love to see him in AHL games.
LC Connor McDavid. Not much information after the Covid-19 news but he should be ready for training camp. I have a feeling he’s going to make teams pay in 2020-21. Amazing five years.
LC Leon Draisaitl. Hart Trophy winner. Superhero. Honestly I’m not sure what he can do for an encore but cannot wait to find out.
RC Kyle Turris. I didn’t think the Oilers would hire an offensive center for third-line duties but we are here. As long as he can outscore opponents five on five I’m on board.
LC Jujhar Khaira. He’s a fine penalty killer and Tippett liked him late at center. I don’t think Khaira owns the No. 4 C job but he has a good chance to play 50 games there.
RC Gaetan Haas. I believe he has a chance to pass Khaira on the depth chart, and Haas might take playing time away from some of the wingers too. His underyling numbers were among the most interesting of any Oilers bottom six forward a year ago.
RC Cooper Marody. It’s an important year for him, and I’m not sure if he lands at center or on the wing. He has a great deal of skill for the AHL, and his NHL games were encouraging. It’s just been so long since we saw him good and healthy.
LC Alan Quine. He’s an interesting player. Definitely in that AHL-NHL shuttle in terms of quality, he’s noticeable in a good way . Aggressive, 1.21 points per 60 at five on five for his career.
LC Ryan McLeod. I think the Oilers are less than a year from putting him in the NHL lineup every night. Fast train with two-way ability, the only question is offense. Oilers would be thrilled if he could post 1.60/60 at five on five and I think he might be the No. 3 center soon and for a long time unless Dylan Holloway grabs the job from him down the line.
RC Adam Cracknell. He can play center or wing, and is a big, rugged forward. It’s my guess he is a candidate for recall, although the role he plays is mostly found on Edmonton’s wings (Kassian, Chiasson).
LW Ryan Nugent-Hopkins. He has scored 20+ goals three seasons in a row, and Nuge’s shooting percentages in those years has been part of the spike. In his first six years in the league, RNH scored 95 goals on 887 shots (10.7 percent). In the past three seasons, he is shooting 13.0 percent (74 goals on 531 shots). He is a more complete player now than he’s ever been.
LW James Neal scored 19 goals, 12 on the power play and many early in the season when the Oilers got off to that great start. He is not a plus five on five scorer and eventually will be forced down the depth chart, but Edmonton doesn’t have anyone who will push him on the roster at this time.
LW Tyler Ennis. A welcome return after a solid audition, Ennis scored 3-3-6 in 12 games, including playoffs. That’s about 15 goals, and puts him middle six for the Oilers on the left side. He has a chance to win the job on McDavid’s wing and looked healthy and fast during his time with Edmonton. One of the most important spots on the roster (wrote about it at The Athletic), I don’t see him as the long-term solution for 97’s left wing but he could have a helluva year there.
LW Joakim Nygard. He’s a speedster and Holland-Tippett want more pace, so I see Nygard as a possible middle-six option at times. His work with McDavid, in a very small sample, was impressive.
LW Tyler Benson. Oilers don’t trumpet his arrival and that’s a tell. Edmonton’s left-wing depth chart is currently the weakest on the roster, and Benson is NHL-ready. I think the management of the team view him as a bottom six option. There is, however, hope. If Holland doesn’t add here, Benson has something close to a clear path to the NHL. He has talent, but needs to arrive in camp like Kyle Brodziak did in 2007 or Ethan Bear did one year ago.
LW Joe Gambardella. I’m not sure an Oilers management person has mentioned his name in a year, and that’s a tell. Forechecking is his forte, so there should be some time for him, and as is the case with Benson, the depth chart is welcoming at this time.
LW Ostap Safin. He was healthy in 2019-20 and that’s a victory. The numbers from the ECHL were just okay, but full health was the major concern and we’ll see what he brings in Bakersfield.
RW Zack Kassian. Edmonton badly needs first half Kassian (44, 13-15-28) and cannot abide second half Kassian (15, 2-4-6, suspension, inconsistent play). I’m a fan of this player, and believe intimidation is effective, but he has to play smarter if he’s going to be part of the future.
RW Kailer Yamamoto. In 53 NHL games over his career, he is 12-19-31. That works out to around 50 points in 82 games, and that my friends is a valuable player. One of the extreme positives for Edmonton, who have had a helluva time graduating good forwards from Bakersfield.
RW Jesse Puljujarvi. The entire story is so damn encouraging. After his first experience with the team, JP sounded convincing when saying he would never return. Well, he’s signed for two seasons and I do believe Holland got him a center (Turris). If they can find the soft underbelly of the opposition and left winger (Ennis, I believe), we could see 10-15 goals from this young man. One of the truly compelling stories about the season to come.
RW Alex Chiasson. He was the most effective bottom-six forward in possession and had a solid year on the PP. He is a candidate to move over to left wing and one of the few reliable players on the wing. Trade rumours have clouded his offseason but he’s still here.
RW Josh Archibald. A utility player at a position that has no room at the Inn, Archibald is also a player we could see moving to left wing due to overcrowding. His goal differential at five on five a year ago was disconcerting, it might land him on the fourth line should it continue.
RW Patrick Russell. He signed a contract that looked like he won the No. 14F job with the Oilers, but right now it doesn’t look that way. The coach trusts him, so he still has a chance.
RW Seth Griffith. I know this player pretty well, former Bruins draft pick from 2012. He scored 20 in the AHL as a rookie and did it again last season, has posted strong scoring seasons in the minors all down the line. In 79 NHL games, he is 8-11-19. Should be considered a long shot for recall.
RW Raphael Lavoie. The most promising goal scorer among the players who have turned pro, he is 2-1-3 in four Allsvenskan games so far this season. He is the one Oilers prospects who is a forward and 20+ who I believe will have an NHL career.
RW Kirill Maksimov. Not much shaking so far in the KHL, no points in three games. Among the forwards slated for Bakersfield, this coming season was perhaps more important to Maksimov than any other young player.
LOWDOWN WITH LOWETIDE
A rocking show today gets underway at 10 this morning, TSN1260. Bruce McCurdy from the Cult of Hockey at the Edmonton Journal will talk draft and free agency, and defend keeping the Draisaitl line intact. Joe Osborne from OddsShark will talk NFL, NBA and MLB, and a little about what we’ll be watching when baseball goes away. 10-1260 text, @Lowetide on twitter. See you on the radio!
Sure, don’t rely on him to be a driver. I agree with that.
But IMO the sample size is too small (or too distant) to claim he and Draisaitl NEED Nuge to be effective. Likewise that expecting him to be one of the top 4 forwards will ‘severely impact his effectiveness’.
I see zero reason to lock Nuge-Draisaitl-Yamamoto in as a line that needs to remain intact to be effective. I’m fine if they’re together, fine if Tippett tries Ennis-Draisaitl-Yamamoto again. See what works. Adjust accordingly. Not exploring the various combinations (before playoff season) does a disservice to everyone IMO.
I try as much as possible to be a cogentleman.
The truth is finally seeing the light of day!
Yamamoto has always had exquisite advanced stats but no production, except with Nugent-Hopkins AND Draisaitl.
Some people are always trying to rush him into a critical role, rather than just be patient.
It is a risky bet to rely on Yamamoto as a driver in a pair this year. He is likely to just be the third guy on a line in the top six with two drivers for a couple of more years.
One severely impacts his effectiveness by expecting him to be one of the top four forwards. He is NOT that yet.
He can help those guys on their line, but he is not one of those guys yet.
How unusual.
G Money,
Brilliant post. So you’re saying that if Connor McDavid flips a coin while facing east, then Smith makes more saves?
Music school was like that. People getting taught about Stravinsky+Louis Armstrong; who most often end up eking out a living teaching/low level performance light years removed from these exceptional artists.
I agree that SV% is the best widely available metric we have for goalies. But what’s the value of breaking out the EV/PP/PK numbers from the overall?
I get it for forwards (and D). Their roles and usage on special teams vary a lot. How they’re used will have a huge effect on their overall performance. And their usage in those situations can be quite tenuous.
I don’t get why it’s helpful for goalies though.
I hesitate to address this since there is a distinct possibility that my sarcasm detector is on the fritz. On the off chance that this is meant seriously, I’ll just comment that the San Diego discovery you mention (if it’s the one from Nature in 2017) is not conclusive. The authors of the article inferred the presence of hominids based on evidence on mastodon bones. No actual hominid remains were discovered. If the evidence on the bones is indeed evidence of hominids (which is disputed based on the nature of the supposed tools used), then there is nothing to point to the identity of the specific hominid (they may or may not be neanderthal in origin). Suffice to say there is disagreement among experts especially in the absence of corroborating archeological evidence.
Agreed that Barrie will help even strength offense/transition every bit as much as he’ll help the PP.
Indeed. Same reason the text books in law schools are full of the edge cases, rather than the run of the mill matters that most lawyers deal with in the course of their normal practice.
G Money,
Shabash, excellent post. Gestalt !
Don’t apologize for the verbiage. Your post is cogent.
Not with that potty mouth, young man.
In 46 play-in minutes they were 3-4 in goals but 52% in shots, 62% xGoals and 64% HD scoring chances. There is some hope.
In the whole (still tiny) 120 minute sample it looks like they’re positive in shots, scoring chance, HD scoring chances and xGoals. Just not actual goals.
I wouldn’t write off Leon-Kailer without Nuge as being doomed. I mean, what was/is going to happen when Holland signed(s) Kahun on the cheap?
Not come as no surprise?!?! Dafuq.
I should run for some fookin’ political office, eh?
One more thought, this time re: GSAA and sv%.
The correct point was already made that the two are highly correlated.
This should not come as no surprise given that high save percentage means that the keeper stopped a lot of shots and therefore gave up fewer goals … which means that naturally it will almost always drive GSAA up as well.
But emphasizing the high correlation perhaps misses the point. Where things get interesting with these stats is exactly when they diverge significantly.
It’s those goalies whose GSAA and save percent are non-confirming that need to be delved into further.
Okay, this time for reals, ttyl …
Hey gang. Don’t find myself ’round these parts much these days, but it was suggested I check out the thread and it may not surprise you to know that re: PuckIQ … I have thoughts.
Apologies for the monster post that follows.
First, contextually, think of the observed results for a player as being a complex function like this:
observed = f( player, QoT, QoC, zone starts, other stuff )
If that’s too abstract for you, think of it in terms of adds and subtracts:
observed results =
what the player brings to the table
– QoC (in other words higher QoC means worse results, lower QoC means better results)
+ QoT (better teammates means better results, worse means worse)
+ true o zone starts (the coach putting you out for an o zone faceoff makes life easier)
– true d zone starts (d zone faceoffs make life tougher)
+- other stuff (e.g. earlier shift starts vs tough comp make life tougher)
So the first point is that presumably it’s a reasonable statement to make that stronger QoC reduces observed results all else being equal. If you see no difference between playing McDavid’s line versus playing say Khaira’s line, we probably don’t have anything else hockey related to talk about.
Secondly, I hope it’s not controversial to declare that all else is pretty much never equal. So when you see results that don’t follow a nice inverse relationship with QoC, it shouldn’t come as a surprise as it tells you that those other factors are strongly influencing the output.
Thirdly, it strikes me as both odd and perhaps even a little disingenuous for someone to interpret the statement that “QoC matters” is somehow a statement that the other factors don’t matter. Shades of “all lives”.
Fourth, “all else being equal” is the siren song that draws so many analytical sailors to shipwreck on the shores of WAR. After all, the algorithms used therein, typically regression, are all about isolating influences exactly so you can get a sense of what happens if all else were equal.
(I couch it as a shipwreck because my personal opinion is that there simply isn’t enough richness of NHL public data available to actually tease out all of those factors, *especially* QoC, and that’s why you get such oft-strange and oft-non-corroborating outputs from the different WAR models. That leaves them IMO more as interesting academic pursuits than useful measures. But that’s a soapbox for another day)
Which brings us to the purpose of PuckIQ, which is to try and show how those observed player outputs mentioned earlier change as a result of changing QoC. You wouldn’t expect every player to have a nice linear inverse relationship, that would be weird to given how important the other factors are, and how dynamic they are.
But you get to confirm it or disconfirm it for any given player, and do so in a way that is both intuitive (who doesn’t understand TOI% vs Elite?) and reflective of what is happening on the ice. It’s what we do.
Usage is a big driver for this, which is why we’ve also added a ‘true shift start’ database, where you can see how players do on coach-mandated o or d zone faceoffs, or on the fly shifts.
And finally, for anyone who does use PuckIQ, I leave you with a caution regarding the particular analysis seen here, which uses goals as the sole metric.
Despite their overriding importance to the game, goals are already the lowest sample size and most volatile of all the metrics you can use.
The big caution with the way we split player results into the three levels of competition leaves *any* subsequent analysis prone to variance. Anytime you split data like this, you see deltas between the different buckets even in perfectly balanced or completely uniformly random data sets, simply because of variance.
The simplest example I can give you is imagine you flipped a coin and it happened perfectly as 5 heads and 5 tails. Now imagine you flipped half while facing east and half while facing west. Split the dataset into E/W and draw some conclusions, I dare you!
Despite the fact that this is both a random and balanced data set, the absolute closest split it’s possible to get between East and West will give you a 60% (3/2) versus 40% (2/3) result. It could of course easily be even more disparate than that.
If you don’t understand the random drivers, that result might lead you erroneously to believe that the direction in which you face influences the result of your coin flips. That’s variance! (Maybe also a biz opportunity to exploit the gullible)
The only way to beat that variance is using sample size. That effect will dissipate with 5000 coinflips … unless there really is an East/West influence.
Which is why we tell you be very cautious with any PuckIQ competition bucket that has less than 150 minutes of ice time in it, even if you’re using a high-frequency stat like Corsi. And if you’re using goals, that minimum bucket ice time might be 450 to 600 minutes or more.
That kind of TOI almost never happens, especially so in a shortened season. So how much of the weird results are because of non-QoC factors, and how much is variance? That’s the problem – no way to know, other than to recognize that variance *does* play a significant factor.
In other words, looking at goals in isolation in this context will almost always be problematic. Pay attention to TOI, and use the full panel of CF/DFF/GF!
Sorry for the verbiage but I felt it was important to set the record straight. Please carry on with your day!
No, you were perfectly clear and I agree.
Since Osgood is the standard for the “you can win without elite goal tending” I suspect that Holland does as well.
Getting good players is a sound strategy that every GM tries to employ but what wins even better is getting good players that play to each other’s strengths & mitigates their weaknesses.
It just takes a little more skill to do the latter than the former.
Smith wasn’t the best answer but the alternative moves his signing allowed cap hit for was the superior answer imo.
Good to see you back around here.
SEEms like a long time since we have had a picture of Diane Lane !
To make sure I understand, after watching the Oilers through 71 games, a 5 month pause and 4 playoff games, you cam to conclusion that goaltending was the team’s main issue?
This. I think three seasons of a goalie, with even strength, pk and pp numbers, along with overall, offer a nice view.
Exactly, I’m losing the logic when it comes to the comparison’s between Demko, Koski, Vasi and other tenders here.
I think Markstrom is a very good goalie, but agree with Georges here that this was not Calgary’s biggest issue. There will be an excellent opportunity to test how good he is this year as he’ll be playing behind a similarly leaky D in Calgary if they don’t make any more moves before the season starts.
Didn’t you know that you’re only supposed to ignore small sample sizes sometimes but not other times? I thought HH made this clear.
Gallagher contract will help with Nuge.
That’s good news.
Harpers Hair,
In the KHL, Koskinen has posted similar or better numbers in playoffs compared to in regular season.
I’m not saying he’s better than Vasil.
I’m saying 3-4 poor playoff games shouldn’t dismiss a goaltender.
And Koskinen is turning out to be a good goaltender
Even though he lost 2 games out of 3 after not playing for 5 months
Current hockey analytics gives the same value to a shot into a goalies chest as a shot in open space of net elevation above the pad near the post to blocker side from the same x,y location.
It truly makes it look silly.
If you gave a kid a pebble.
YounPoint to a wall with a big hole in it.
Then tell the kid if you throw the pebble into the wall or into the hole they both have thebsame chance of going past the wall.
The kid will think younare a fool.
That is hokeynanalyrics current shotbanalysis.
This is exactly what the entire hickey community is doing except for the guy with both half’s of the puzzle.
If a Dpair allows high Opensh rates and gives a goalie an xSave% of .890 to perform around and he has a save % of .903 most would perceive that as a poor performing goalie.
A -.010 compared to .913 league average.
But they are actually A +.013.
xG is really baseline xSave% established by the Cummulative goal density total Given up based on a total shot density chart.
Years ago on here I talked about density affect using simple LD and HD averages shot counts showing the various baseline xSave% that a Dpair can create.
Long before xG became popular.
I advised E. Perry (on HF boards) that he failed to understand that it was xSave% that was the value for Dpairs when it came to my ( rickisbox) high danger shot area Cummulative shot density yeilded.
(Total sh – Cummulative shot density ) /Total sh
People struggled with this.
I was not going to throw in the 2nd half at the same time.
xG is the valuation of a fwd.
Yes he did.
But your logic is flawed.
Vasilevski’s save percentage for the last three seasons including that playoff meltdown:
.925
.917
.927
None of the other goalies under discussion are even in the same area code.
GSAA is much better than SV% In catching outliers (subpar goalie on good D team, good goalie on bad D team)and combined with QS% and combined is really the best tools we have in player evaluation at any position
Players have their own performance average.
A reflection of HD area performance and open Shot targeting.
As long as they repeat their sports mechanisms they will” get reoeat results against other groups of like competition.
Their is an overall xAvg Firbany pkayer data Column.
Players can have various TOI segments of Team, Comp, ZS resulting difrent league averages fir those segments.
A overall general analysis is The most simple end of season Look at the +ve negative affect of a player.
But it does not show the minimum (4/comp x 4 team x 6 ZS = 96 groups) to nmax (8 x 8 x 6 = 364) 3D under area graph xAvg fir each of the groups in 4 difrent graphs.
Fo ZS with pocession
FO ZS without pocession
Bench change with pocession
Bench change without pocession.
This player situation approach tells you what a pkayer is best suited fir.
And weather they are a +ve or negative affect pkayer.
No it doesn’t.
Contract year makes a difference
I thought the point you were making was that Bear hadn’t played enough NHL games to warrant the term contract like Klef got and I was just pointing out that Bear has actually played more games…..
Thanks – great stuff.
Do we know if there has been any movement on the OHL and the “requirement” to eliminate bodychecking in order to play?
Andrei vasilevskyi
2019 playoffs
4 games played. 3.83 GAA 0.856 sv%
By your logic, Tampa should have known to get rid of this goaltender who is obviously useless in playoffs.
And you might go on about small sample size and what not.
But the truth of it is that Andrei shit the bed in the playoffs.
Just throwing your logic back at you
George XS:
Pucks that are shot into a goalies body parts are non scoreable.
You do not include non scoreable data in save % analysis.
A dman block, forced misses and shots into a goalie is not a save.
Itbis the action of defenceman pressuring fwd targeting so they are blocked, misses or hit the goalie.
O%corsi/ CA is measure of elite open shot reduction Dmen.
You can only measure a goalie by the expected save% (xSave% =xG) Based on a shot success map of only open shots.
Not the shot success map of total shots giving save% value to shots into the goalie.
Their is a +ve and – ve performance relative to the open shot xSave%.
You want top 10 if you can get them.
– I bet you a home cooked meal (only because some of your recipes have been amazing) that Markstrom gets bought out of his contract. And before that he doesn’t win them a Cup.
– Goalies don’t matter as much as consensus believes and Markstrom will prove to be an over pay in dollars and term.
– that’s why I asked what you meant about interesting
– and you answered. So he’s even worse, saved by an unrealistic PK sv%
– For all the Incorrect hostile posts we had to read about how koski was the problem like multiple ones each and every day, surely you can handle a little push back
– and yeah I’m worried about the fact they kept the same goalie tandem as last year while creating a more offence driven team.
– From starting an inferior goalie for fist game of playoffs to giving smith way more rope when he loses and not riding Koski when he was hot, but doing so to smith, to knowing they were doing it so smith could get paid more money, not on performance, to having a GM say we were close to getting a number 1 goalie this off-season: they are doing a disservice to Koski. Koski isn’t their guy.
– personal would be saying stuff that is personal to you. I made no personal comment? Did I say anything about your person or caracter or insult? I was just factual.
– You also hammered me every time I correctly slotted Pool into roster projections. I chuckled with your passive aggressive :“honest question, why do you always slot him in”.
– But at least you give opinions. I appreciate that. Not “Turris is the worst choice” then “Turris has a chance to be really good pick up”.
Some people can only grasp that stat.
And, I agree, Markstrom is the single best move in the Pacific division this offseason.
He’s the goods.
Bouchard…
Heh.
Markstrom has been very consistent last 3 years.
All purpose GSAA per natural stat trick
19-20 7.5
18- 19 10.4
17-18 6.93
Im jealous of the Flames because that is a very good level of consistency behind a defense that would at best be described as having some holes. He’s going to a team that has had huge issues with goalering consistency and Rittich has been incredibly non consistent. The Markstrom get is quite possibly the offseasons single greatest get
Also why are people still using save percentage?
Markstrom was playing behind a Vancouver D that was very leaky in giving up scoring chances.
He was third in the league in saves above average on high danger scoring chances.
Without him, it’s unlikely they would have made the post season.
You need to take a look at trajectory.
Working with “goalie whisperer” Ian Clark, Markstrom improved every season.
Not sure why you would bring up Talbot.
His save percentage the last three seasons:
.908
.893
.919
Markstrom’s last three seasons:
.912
.912
.918
Talbot only played 26 games last season behind a better D than Vancouver while Markstrom played 43 games.
Markstrom is clearly a better bet than Talbot although Talbot may do well in Minnesota’s lock down system.
As for Koskinen, the track record is much smaller:
.906
.917
But in games that matter in the post season there is no comparison:
Markstrom .918
Talbot .919
Koskinen .889
You will no doubt go on and on about sample size but one of the reasons (although certainly not all) is that Koskinen and, to an even greater degree, Mike Smith absolutely shit the bed in the post season.
Coming back into the next season with the same sub par goaltending is going to sink any thoughts of glory.
It’s why Holland tried (and failed) to shore up the position.
No – interesting because Smith’s overall numbers from last year are propped up from an unsustainable PK save percentage.
Thanks for being personal and condescending all in the name of a misinterpreted comment…..
I’m not sure why I keep reading (hearing) that Barrie will help on the PP and that will be his main attributute.
After Keefe took over on November 20th, he was 6th in the NHL in 5 on 5 points for d-men and, in aggregate over the last 3 years, he is 8th.
He is an elite puck mover and transitioner of the puck and creates offence from the back-end, at 5 on 5.
The Oilers main scoring forwards are transition/rush players primarily – they will be getting the puck from Tyson Barrie this season (in addition to more Caleb Jones, a further developed Ethan Bear and some Evan Bouchard).
The question is if Jacob Markstrom is elite.
He was very good last year, potential Vezina candidate if he didn’t get hurt.
With that said, it was his only NHL season was a save percentage over .912 since a .915 back in 2015/16. His numbers were akin to Koskinen’s this year and, if I remember correctly, Koskinen was playing with a “middling group of d-men” in front of him.
If Markstrom better going forward than Talbot? Probably, however Talbot was better than Markstom numbers-wise last year and has multiple season better than anything Markstrom has done, numbers wise – including close to a .920 in 73 games a few years ago.
A good team with a bad goalie is a bad team.
An elite goalie can cover up a host of sins.
Uh… hi?
A good goalie can make a bad team better, but a good team cannot make a bad goalie better.
An old friend passed away on the weekend.
I’m sure that there are some here who knew him and his tremendous contributions to the Edmonton amateur sporting community.
RIP Rob Zittlau.
https://edmontonjournal.com/sports/football/sports-groups-across-edmonton-remember-talented-procaster-rob-zittlau/wcm/623ab663-d9c0-474a-98f0-19e9f4262fc4
but yet his emergency last year was absolutely crucial to the success the team had and the team would be much worse if he was removed from the lineup.
2016-17 the cap was $73M with the Klefbolm deal in the number the Oilers’ cap was $68M and he was a first rounder – the Bear situation is MUCH different than when Klefbolm signed